Judge Dread - 5th Anniversary EP

Had to post some Judge Dread as he was such a great part of my early music listening years :)
I remember first hearing him at Music class at secondary school, every week pupils were allowed to bring in records to play for the last half hour of lesson.
Top tunes of the day were stuff like Slade, Lieutenant Pigeon's Mouldy old Dough!, Donny Osmand etc, but one kid brought in his brother's Big Six by Judge Dread (as well as Big Five by Prince Buster) and as the teacher used to leave us to it we all had a laugh until the teacher came back and blew a fuse :)
If nothing else it was a good introduction to Reggae/Ska and I went home and asked my sister to play some of her stuff, so I've always had a soft spot for this type of stuff.

Here's the sadly departed Judge's 5th Anniversary EP from 1977 which includes a nice variation of his works, End of the World is brilliant and should have been a big hit but the Judge's novelty past was against him, Big Everything is a nice compilation of the "Big" series.

01 - Jamaica Jerk Off
02 - Bring Back The Skins
03 - End Of The World
04 - Big Everything

Macc Lads - Beer And Sex And Chips N Gravy

In case you've never heard of the Macc Lads this article sums them up pretty well "notorious for their foul mouthed lyrics, political incorrectness, drinking, sexism and homophobia, They managed to offend a great many people (which was the intention)"
But apart from that this is just brilliant (obviously sense of humour is required) :)

A mate gave me this on tape in the late eighties and for me it was like a return to the punk years, the best thing I'd heard in years. Officially released in 1985 I missed it (probably because there was no chance of any of these getting radio airplay).

Classic lyric from "Do you love me" - "Do you love me?" "I fuck you don't I" just so you know :)

01 Lads from Macc
02 Beer And Sex And Chips N Gravy
03 Boddies
04 Sweaty Betty
05 England's Glory
06 Blackpool
07 Miss Macclesfield
08 God's Gift to Women
09 Get Weavin'
10 Now He's a Poof
11 Nagasaki Sauce
12 Saturday Night
13 Buenos Aires
14 Charlotte
15 Failure With Girls
16 Do You Love Me
17 Dan's Underpant
18 Twenty Pints
19 Macc Lads Party

Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

One more in this batch, here's the classic Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division.
First time I'd played the vinyl in a lot of years and the B side caught me out as it always used to, I thought I was listening to an unknown techno version of "These Days" when I realised it was at the wrong speed! because I'd forgotten that there was an uncredited alternate version of the A side on it as well.

Should also point out that if you haven't seen the film "Control" yet, you should try and see it as I thought it was brilliant.

A - Love Will Tear Us Apart
B1 - These Days
B2 - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Alternate Version)

Celia And The Mutations - 2 Singles

To tie in with the previous post here are the first two (and possibly only) singles by Celia and the Mutations.
Mony Mony / Mean to me features the Stranglers on backing vocals and instruments,
as far as I know only JJ Burnel is on the 2nd single.

Celia And The Mutations - Mony Mony
Celia And The Mutations - Mean To Me

Celia And The Fabulous Mutations - You Better Believe Me
Celia And The Young Mutations - Round And Around

Stranglers - Walk On By

A double bill of the Stranglers "Walk On By".
First up the free version given away with the "Black and White" album which was originally on white vinyl, for some reason my White vinyl has actually gone a shade of Pink over the years?
Next is the actual released version, although the main track seems to be the same version both have different B-Sides.
The freebie one has "Mean to Me" which was later released with a different singer under the guise of Celia and the Mutations, and "Tits" which basically is a band introduction song which was recorded at the Hope and Anchor in London.
The official release has "Old Codger" with George Melly on vocals and the distinctive harmonica played by Lew Lewis, then "Tank" from the Black and White album.

01 - Walk On By
02 - Mean To Me
03 - Tits

01 - Walk On By
02 - Old Codger
03 - Tank

John Foxx - Underpass

Just a great track, nothing more to say you'll be glad to hear :)

A - Underpass
B - Film One

Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives

Remember the first time I heard this very well, I was in hospital after suffering a ruptured appendix (I'd only had a pain for a day, and then the bloody thing tried to kill me), the first time they let me walk about I went down to the TV room and Elvis Costello was playing this live on some afternoon show.
So I sort of associate this song with a "glad to be alive" feeling, although the lyrics don't really fit :)

A - Elvis Costello - Watching The Detectives
B - Elvis Costello And The Attractions - Blame It On Caine (Live In London)
C - Elvis Costello And The Attractions - Mystery Dance (Live In London)

UB40 - The Earth Dies Screaming

Back in the days when UB40 were worth listening to, as in before they started doing those rotten cover versions and wrote meaningful songs like this and One in Ten, Burden of Shame and Tyler etc.

This one summed up the forthcoming Nuclear holocaust pretty well at the time (well it was 1980 at the time)

A warm dry wind is all that breaks the silence,
The highways quiet scars across the land.
People lie, eyes closed, no longer dreaming,
The earth dies screaming.
Anyway enough of that morbid stuff.. One thing that always bothered me was the name UB40 which everyone said was the code of the unemployment benefit card, I had been laid off work in 1980 and mine was a UB40Z? Had they changed it recently or were UB40 never actually on the dole.
Of course it could be that UB40Z is not as catchy :)

A - The Earth Dies Screaming
B - Dream A Lie

Be Bop DeLuxe - Hot Valves EP

Here's Bill Nelson and Be Bop DeLuxe with what is basically an introduction to the bands music, 4 tracks from 4 LP's.
If you've never heard them before it's hard to put them in a category? sort of Pop, Rock with a bit of Prog thrown in.

01 - Made In Heaven
02 - Bring Back The Spark
03 - Blazing Apostles
04 - Jet Silver And The Dolls Of Venus

Flying Lizards - TV

The follow up single to Money, this one failed to hit the chart probably because it's just weird but I loved it :)
The B side is basically an instrumental version of TV, if someone told you it was early Aphex Twin you'd think it was possible (think Aphex twin are great before anyone complains) :)

A - TV
B - Tube

Big Audio Dynamite - E=MC²

The second and most succesful single from Big Audio Dynamite, who of course featured Mick Jones of the Clash and punk film maker Don Letts.

Blah, Blah.......
Thought of this track the other day when watching a guy explaining peoples belief in religion, he pointed out that we all believe that E=MC² even though only Mathematicians and Physicists can actually understand it, but because someone cleverer than us says it's true we believe it in the same way that some people look up to their priests and clergy and believe whatever they're told.

A - E=MC²
B - This Is Big Audio Dynamite

Lol Creme And Kevin Godley - 5 O'Clock In The Morning

Here's an oddity, this was the single released by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme after they split from my favourite mid seventies band 10cc.
This is almost a sampler for the overblown and over priced Consequences album they released to demonstrate "the Gizmo", more info Here.
Here they go under the name of "Lol Creme And Kevin Godley" before some bright spark decided that "Godley and Creme" sounded better :)
The B-Side is an edit of the track The Flood.

A - 5 O'Clock In The Morning
B - The Flood (Edited)

Simple Minds - Life In A Day

Early single from Simple Minds on the Zoom label.
The intro sounds like a cross between the Brookside theme and that annoying jingle from Halloween 3 :)
But it's still a really good song as they still sound more punk than stadium rock.

A - Life In A Day
B - Special View

Sham 69 - Angels With Dirty Faces

The song that brought Sham 69 to the masses, still a classic.
The B Side is a reworking of the old George Davis is innocent song, George gets a mention right at the end.

A - Angels With Dirty Faces
B - The Cockney Kids Are Innocent

Malcolm McLaren - Buffalo Gals

Love or hate this guy, no one can deny this was a great record, He certainly knew how to exploit an upcoming trend.

A - Malcolm McLaren And The World Famous Supreme Team - Buffalo Gals
(The one we all know)
B - Malcolm McLaren - Buffalo Gals
(A sort of Hoedown version from the B-side)

Echo And The Bunnymen - The Cutter

My second favourite Echo song.

A - The Cutter
B - Way Out And Up We Go

Echo And The Bunnymen - The Back Of Love

There are so many bands that I end up loving the first song I ever heard by them and never like anything else as much again (if that makes sense?).
Thought this was brilliant the first time I heard it, and still think it's brilliant 26 years later.

A - The Back Of Love
B - The Subject

Fischer Z - The Worker

Nice enough track by Fischer-Z who despite the German sounding name were a British band, this one was a minor hit in 1979 although I prefer the B-side.

A - The Worker
B - Kitten Curry

Blah Blah........
My last remaining picture disc :(
At various points during the late seventies and mid eighties I probably bought and sold hundreds of these novelties, as I remember the Cars single "My Best Friend's Girl" was one of the first singles to be mass produced in Picture disc format and it stormed into the top 3, so everyone jumped on the bandwagon and my local record dealer had just about everything, so I ended up with singles of every colour, square discs, shaped picture discs such as a police badge shaped disc from the Police (obviously) and I remember one that was shaped like an old time car on which the actual disc was only about 5" so my record player would turn it off half way through, sad thing about that one is can't even remember what song it was? I think the band were called "Auto De Fe" or something similar.
The downside of most of these were the quality, most even new were slightly warped and just didn't sound as good as the old fashioned black vinyl.

Aztec Camera - Walk Out To Winter

Here's Aztec Camera's Walk Out To Winter which was the first song I'd heard by them and bought it early expecting it to be a huge hit, sadly it failed to hit the top 40? but I still rate it my favourite track by them.

A - Walk Out To Winter
B - Set The Killing Free

Reminiscence Waffle

Was looking at a site listing peoples first ever record, and on the whole most have some really embarrasing first records, usually things like the Smurfs, Wombles, Teletubbies etc :)
I guess that's down to people being given them by parents and grandparents who think that's what you should be listening to?

Possibly due to my age and background I never had a record player or any records until I was 13, we did have one of those old radiogrammes? that looked like a sideboard and my dad was the only one allowed to switch it on? and as I remember it didn't have an option for 45rpm (78, 33 and 16?).
My older sister had one of those autochanger ones that looked like a suitcase, but she wouldn't let me touch it.
Finally on my 13th Birthday they bought me one, a Rigonda from Russia for £15 and I was told to value it with my life!! it was a standard deck with a seperate speaker and sounded pretty good.
I was also given a record to play on it - Geoff Love plays the Top TV Themes :)
My sister gave me a few of her old unwanted albums, and Dad went to the rubbish tip one day and came home with a huge pile of old 78's someone had dumped (probably some real classics if I could remember them).
Technically speaking the first 7" single I ever owned was "Hey Little Girl" by Del Shannon, I won it as a prize at a school fete. I really don't remember what happened to it?
So back to the original point :) I actually class "Hell Raiser" by the Sweet as my first single as it was the first one I bought with my own earned money, spent a weeks wages on it :)
My paper round only paid me 50p a week, so I went down to my Auntie's record shop in a place called Stanford-Le-Hope and shelled out 47p for it as it was in the charts at the time, and got home and played it to death.
Most of my early albums were accrued as Christmas presents things like 20 Dynamic hits and 20 Fantastic hits etc (must thank the guy who ran the "Radio Radio" blog who posted nearly all of these online before he sadly closed (or had to close?) his blog last year).

Sorry for the waffle, I'm just feeling a bit down at the moment and it helps to reminisce on better days.

Poison Girls - Statement The Complete Recordings

First came across the Poison girls when I bought the Fatal Microbes "violence grows" 12" which had them on the B side.
This 4 CD set is described as the complete recordings 1977-89, I didn't follow their career closely enough to say if that's 100% true but it must be close.

Disc One 1977-80Revenge, Cats Eye, Piano Lessons, Closed Shop, The Moon (I Wanted), Old Tart, Crisis, Ideologically Unsound, Bremen Song, Political Love, Jump Mama Jump, Under the Doctor, Reality Attack, Persons Unknown, State Control, Bully Boys, Tension, SS Snoopers

Disc Two 1981-82Promenade Immortelle, State Control, Another Hero, Hole in the Wall, Underbitch, Alienation, Pretty Polly, Good Time, Other, Daughters & Sons, Tender Love, Dirty Work, Statement, Don't Go Home Tonight, Fuckin' Mother

Disc Three 1983-84
Where's the Pleasure, Lovers are they worth it, Done It All Before, Whiskey Voice, Ménage Abattoir, Take the Toys, Soft Touch, Toys (Reprise), Velvet Launderette, Rio Disco Stink, Cry No More, Mandy is having a Baby, Fear of Freedom, Happy now (12" mix), Cinnamon Garden, Offending Article, Perfect Crime, Tell the Children, Cream Dream

Disc Four 1985-88
Real Woman, Hot for Love, Riot in my mind, Feeling the Pinch, Desperate Days, Voodoo Pappa dollar, Too Close for Comfort, Rock face, No More Lies, Too Proud, Price of Grain, Stonehenge, Jenny, Girls over There, Let It Go, Cupid, Mirrors and Glass, Abort the System, All the Way, State Banjo

Poison Girls - Real Women (Video)

Was going to post this on youtube but someone beat me to it.
One of many great tracks from the Poison Girls, this one is from around 1984.
Stands out for me as the film used in the video is of Southend seafront probably from the early seventies, featuring the old Kursaal amusement park (the world's first theme park) which was closed down in the late seventies.

Ashes To Ashes - Series One

Ashes to Ashes is the follow up series to the highly rated "Life on Mars", which featured 2006 detective Sam Tyler being thrown back to 1973.
For this series replace Sam with female detective Alex Drake who is this time thrown back to 1981 to solve the mystery of her parents death.
All far fetched but good entertainment :)
Also the series featured some great 80's music, the official soundtrack only features 19 of the 66 tracks used plus some dialogue and title themes.
This should be every track that was featured, although I've read some people claim to have heard a few others (but these are those listed on the official website).

01
Ultravox - Vienna
Duran Duran - Careless Memories
Tubeway Army - Are Friends Electric
David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes
The Passions - I'm In Love With a German Film Star
The Clash - I Fought The Law
The Stranglers - No More Heroes
02
Tenpole Tudor - Swords Of A Thousand Men
Madness - The Prince
Imagination - Body Talk
The Flying Lizards - Money
Visage - Fade To Grey
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Souvenir
Dexy's Midnight Runners - Geno
Heaven 17 - (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing
Jon And Vangelis - I Hear You Now
Dexy's Midnight Runners - There There My Dear
Chas And Dave - Gertcha
03
The Ruts - Staring At The Rude Boys
Joe Jackson - It's Different For Girls
Roxy Music - Let's Stick Together
Roxy Music - Over You
Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up
Modern Romance - Ay Ay Ay Ay Moosey
Duran Duran - Planet Earth
Altered Images - Happy Birthday
The Buzzcocks - Autonomy
The Beat - Doors Of Your Heart
04
Spandau Ballet - To Cut A Long Story Short
Shakin' Stevens - Green Door
Duran Duran - Girls On Film
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Enola Gay
The Clash - London Calling
Human League - Love Action
The Teardrop Explodes - Reward
The Clash - Police and Thieves
05
Madness - One Step Beyond
Simple Minds - I Travel
XTC - Sgt Rock (Is Going To Help Me)
Killing Joke - Turn To Red
Donna Summer - I Feel love
John Davis - Love Magic
Human League - Don't You Want Me
Sarah Brightman And Hot Gossip - I lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper
Soft Cell - Where Did Our Love Go
06
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
The Skids - Into The Valley
Roxy Music - Same Old Scene
The Beat - Mirror In The Bathroom
Spandau Ballet - Chant No 1
Kim Wilde - Kids In America
Ultravox - Vienna *
The Stranglers - Golden Brown
Japan - Ghosts
07
The Clash - Police On My Back
Kate Bush - The Man With The Child In His Eyes
The Beat - Whine And Grine
Michael Jackson - One Day In Your Life
David Bowie - Fame
The Selecter - Too Much Pressure
Peaches and Herb - Reunited
Marshall Hain - Dancing In the City
Rossini - William Tell Overture
08
Tom Robinson Band - 2 4 6 8 Motorway
David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes *
Supertramp - Take The Long Way Home
Bonus TracksIntroduction Dialogue - Alex Drake
Interlude Dialogue - You're Nicked
Edmund Butt - Gene Genie (Gene Hunt's Theme)
Edmund Butt - Title Music from Ashes To Ashes
Epilogue Dialogue - Fandabydozy

JJ Burnel - Euroman Cometh

Another Stranglers spin-off.
Here's bassist's Jean Jaques Burnel's 1979 solo debut Euroman cometh.
Tracks 1-11 are the original album, track 12 was the B-side to the Freddie Laker single, and tracks 13-21 were recorded live at Hemel Hempstead.

01 Euroman
02 Jellyfish
03 Freddie Laker (Concorde and Eurobus)
04 Euromess
05 Deutschland Nicht Uber Alles
06 Do the European
07 Tout Comprendre
08 Triumph (Of the Good City)
09 Pretty Face
10 Crabs
11 Eurospeed (Your Own Speed)
12 Ozymandias
13 Ode to Joy / Do the European
14 Deutschland Nicht Uber Alles
15 Eurospeed (Your Own Speed)
16 Crabs
17 Tout Comprendre
18 Freddie Laker (Concorde and Eurobus)
19 Jellyfish
20 Triumph (Of The Good City)
21 Euroman

Dickies - Banana Splits

The unique sound of the Dickies, here's their most famous offering.
They had a short run of hits in the late 70's with speeded up cover versions of classics, this one, Paranoid, Silent Night and the brilliant Nights in White Satin (which I'm gutted to find I haven't got anymore - hope I got a good price for it).
Have scanned covers and discs, but the scans don't do justice to the "yellowness" of the disc.

01 - Banana Splits (The Tra La La Song)
02 - Hideous
03 - Got It At The Store

Hugh Cornwell And Robert Williams - Nosferatu

Didn't really appreciate this when I bought it on vinyl at the time and sold it on a few years later, it just wasn't the Stranglers!!
Downloaded it again a few years back and it's grown on me.
Hugh joins with Capt Beefheart drummer Williams on the album, it also features a host of guest stars.
Worth a listen.

01 Nosferttu
02 Losers in a Lost Land
03 White Room
04 Irate Caterpillar
05 Rhythmic Itch
06 Wired
07 Big Bug
08 Mothra
09 Wrong Way Round
10 Puppets
11 Losers in a Lost Land (Instrumental)

VA - X Files Movie Soundtrack

Being an X Files fan I bought the soundtrack album and was annoyed to find out none of the vocal tracks were on it (should've checked first).
As good as Mark Snow's music was it doesn't really maintain the interest, so here are the other tracks which are listed on the movie soundtrack.

01 Filter - One
02 Tonic - Flower Man
03 Foo Fighters - Walking After You
04 Ween - Beacon Light
05 Sting And Aswad - Invisible Sun
06 Cardigans - Deuce
07 Better Than Ezra - One More Murder
08 Cure - More Than This
09 Bjork - Hunter
10 Soul Coughing - 16 Horses
11 X - Crystal Ship
12 Sarah McLachlan - Black
13 Noel Gallagher - Teotihuacan
14 Dust Brothers - The X Files Theme

Stranglers - Don't Bring Harry EP

Still have most of my Stranglers singles but I haven't seen this one posted anywhere else.
The title track is on the Raven album, Wired was originally on Hugh Cornwell's solo album with Robert Williams "Nosferatu", Crabs was A JJ Burnel solo although this is a live version, and In The Shadows was recorded at the famous Hope And Anchor.

Waffle time :) - I didn't actually see the Stranglers live until 1979 as a supporting artist at the big Who gig at Wembley - (Gig Review), to be honest they were awful and they didn't help themselves by mainly playing tracks from the Raven insted of the better known tracks.
The show itself was saved by an inspired performance by AC/DC with the late Bon Scott on vocals.
The Who were good but not brilliant, and I mostly remember the day for the nightmare of trying to get home (ended up spending the night on a park bench near Wembley Central station after all the trains had gone before the concert ended).

01 - Don't Bring Harry
02 - Wired
03 - Crabs (Live Hemel Hempstead 79)
04 - In The Shadows (Live Hope And Anchor 77)

Gheorghe Zamfir - Doina De Jale

To prove I like some weird shit, here's Gheorghe Zamfir with the theme from a seventies BBC show called "the light of experience".
This instrumental probably brought the panpipes to the masses, but don't let that put you off it's a really good "haunting" melody that stands the test of time.
The B side is totally different and I can only describe it as "a Penny whistle on acid" :).

The main song has a strange memory for me, I originally bought it because my Mum liked it, and just afterwards my Girlfriend at the time said she'd been receiving strange phone calls with no talking but just this tune playing in the background?.
Had to hide the disc in case she thought it was me scaring her (it wasn't me, I'm not that imaginative).

01 - Doina De Jale
02 - Briul Oltenesc

CW McCall - Convoy

This "novelty" song spawned a pretty good movie and probably led to the rise of CB
radio during the seventies in the UK, CB like most things illegal was big but people lost interest when it was made legal in the eighties.
Still think it's a great track after all these years, and was pleased to hear it again when I dug it out of my vinyl box.

01 - Convoy
02 - Long Lonesome Road

R Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House

R Dean Taylor was one of the earliest white artists to appear on Motown, he had several hits during the 60's and 70's. This track originally released in 1965 was re-released and charted in 1974 at the height of the Northern Soul revival. The B-Side is a anti discrimination track called Let's go somewhere.

01 - There's A Ghost In My House (Vinyl)
02 - Let's Go Somewhere (Vinyl)

Barclay James Harvest - Live

Bought this EP after someone told me that BJH were well worth a listen, as I hadn't heard any of their stuff before.
The tracks on this EP were recorded live, and I must say they sound good.
The opening song "Rock N Roll Star" is fairly good, but the two parter "Medicine Man" is exceptional.
Liked it so much I went out and bought the album "Octoberon", but ended up really disappointed.
After the brilliance of Medicine Man the album was one of those that never really gets going? most tracks end before the expected crescendo.
One track on the album worth a listen was "Suicide" mainly for the authentic sounding roof jump at the end.

A1 - Rock N Roll Star
A2 - Medicine Man (Part One)
B1 - Medicine Man (Part Two)

Judie Tzuke - Understanding

Self indulgence with this one, I really love this track.
Judie was reasonably famous at the time after hits like "Stay With Me Till Dawn" and "For You" but this one failed to hit the charts.
I found it in a bargain box one day for 10p and not knowing the song I bought it because I liked the cover :-)
So glad I did as it's a totally brilliant song.

A - Understanding
B - It's The Night